What separates movements from everybody else is that movements do. They don't make excuses.
From Seth Godin…

Seen, heard, gotten, changed

Most of the news/advice/insight you run into is merely seen. You might acknowledge that something is happening, that something might work, that a new technique is surfacing.

Sometimes, if you work at it, you actually hear what's being said. You engage with the idea and actively roll it around, considering it from a few angles.

But rarely, too rarely, we actually get what's going on, we understand it well enough to embrace it (or reject it). Well enough to teach it. And maybe that leads to a productive change.

It's not clear to me that more stuff seen leads to more ideas gotten and more action taken. We probably don't need more inputs and noise. We certainly need to do a better job of focusing and even more important, doing the frightening work of acting 'as if' to see if we get it.

An organization uses structure and resources and power to make things happen. Organizations hire people, issue policies, buy things, erect buildings, earn market share and get things done. Your company is probably an organization.

A movement has an emotional heart. A movement might use an organization, but it can replace systems and people if they disappear. Movements are more likely to cause widespread change, and they require leaders, not managers. The internet, it turns out, is a movement, and every time someone tries to own it, they fail.

A philosophy can survive things that might wipe out a movement and that would decimate an organization. A philosophy can skip a generation or two. It is often interpreted, and is more likely to break into autonomous groups, to morph and split and then reunite. Industrialism was a philosophy.

The trouble kicks in when you think you have one and you actually have the other.

Heretics are the new leaders. The ones who challenge the status quo, who get out front of their tribes, who create movements.

There’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement. The movement happens when people talk to one another, when ideas spread within the community, and most of all, when peer support leads people to do what they always knew was the right thing.

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

Great leaders don’t try to please everyone. Great leaders don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead, they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.

Seth Godin doesn't want everyone to be in a tribe, just the people who want to change the world. Why is it that tribes are so important to changing the world?

Because the tribe is extraordinarily well connected, communicating up, down, and sideways, and because they have a passionate mission, not just a common idea.

This interview unpacks Seth's unique take on movement dynamics from a marketing perspective. For those who are Seth fans, also interesting to hear where his name came from and why he's not on Facebook or Twitter.

When your horse dies it's a good idea to dismount. When you're in a hole it's time to stop digging. When the paradigm needs to change, you can't work your way to success. You need to change the rules of the game.

Ten years ago most analysts wrote off Apple. Today they all wish they'd held onto their Apple stocks.

According to Seth Godin it wasn't hard work that made the difference, it was changing the rules of the game.

Mac fans are crowing about Apple's current success--that they have a market cap 20% higher than Dell's. The lesson, other than the fact that pundits and the media are wrong a 11 times out of every 9 predictions, is that Apple didn't succeed by digging in, working all night and doing more of what they'd been doing. They succeeded because they willfully changed the game. And then changed it again.

When your horse dies it's a good idea to dismount. When you're in a hole it's time to stop digging. When the paradigm needs to change, you can't work your way to success. You need to change the rules of the game.

Ten years ago most analysts wrote off Apple. Today they all wish they'd held onto their Apple stocks.

According to Seth Godin it wasn't hard work that made the difference, it was changing the rules of the game.

Mac fans are crowing about Apple's current success--that they have a market cap 20% higher than Dell's. The lesson, other than the fact that pundits and the media are wrong a 11 times out of every 9 predictions, is that Apple didn't succeed by digging in, working all night and doing more of what they'd been doing. They succeeded because they willfully changed the game. And then changed it again.